Edgar Allan Poe: Hans Phaall

HANS PHAALL

by Edgar Allan Poe

1850

There is, strictly speaking, but little similarity between this
sketchy trifle and the very celebrated and very beautiful "Moon-story"
of Mr. Lockebut as both have the character of hoaxes, (although one
is in the tone of banter, the other of downright earnest) and as
both hoaxes are on the same subject, the moonthe author of "Hans
Phaall" thinks it necessary to say, in self-defence, that his own
jeu-d'esprit was published, in the Southern Literary Messenger,
about three weeks previously to the appearance of Mr. L's in the New
York "Sun." Fancying a similarity which does not really exist, some of
the New York papers copied "Hans Phaall," and collated it with the
Hoaxwith the view of detecting the writer of the one in the writer
of the other.

By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high
state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there
occurred of a nature so completely unexpectedso entirely novelso
utterly at variance with preconceived opinionsas to leave no doubt
on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics
in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.
date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically
mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the
well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warmunusually so
for the seasonthere was hardly a breath of air stirring; and the
multitude were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled
with friendly showers of momentary duration, that fell from large
white masses of cloud which chequered in a fitful manner the blue
vault of the firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but
remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly: the clattering
of ten thousand tongues succeeded; and, in an instant afterward, ten
thousand faces were upturned toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes
descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths,
and a shout, which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of
Niagara, resounded long, loudly, and furiously, through all the
environs of Rotterdam.

The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From
behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud
already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue
space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so
oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not to be in any
manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently admired, by the host
of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed below. What could it be?
In the name of all the vrows and devils in Rotterdam, what could it
possibly portend? No one knew, no one could imagine; no onenot even
the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underdukhad the slightest clew
by which to unravel the mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable
could be done, every one to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the
corner of his mouth, and cocking up his right eye towards the
phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly-
then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finallypuffed again.

In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly
city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much
smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately
discerned. It appeared to beyes! it was undoubtedly a species of
balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam
before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured
entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland certainly; yet here,
under the very noses of the people, or rather at some distance above
their noses was the identical thing in question, and composed, I
have it on the best authority, of the precise material which no one
had ever before known to be used for a similar purpose. It was an
egregious insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to
the shape of the phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible.
Being little or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside
down. And this similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when,
upon nearer inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending
from its apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle
of little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a
continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.
Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine,
there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver bat, with a brim
superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band and a
silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many
citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly
before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of
familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Phaall, upon sight of it,
uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and declared it to be the
identical hat of her good man himself. Now this was a circumstance the
more to be observed, as Phaall, with three companions, had actually
disappeared from Rotterdam about five years before, in a very sudden
and unaccountable manner, and up to the date of this narrative all
attempts had failed of obtaining any intelligence concerning them
whatsoever. To be sure, some bones which were thought to be human,
mixed up with a quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately
discovered in a retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some
people went so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had
been committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans
Phaall and his associates. But to return.

The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently
distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a
very droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two
feet in height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been
sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of
his tiny car, but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as
high as the breast, and rigged on to the cords of the balloon. The
body of the little man was more than proportionately broad, giving
to his entire figure a rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course,
could not be seen at all, although a horny substance of suspicious
nature was occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of
the car, or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands
were enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected in a
cue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and inflammatory;
his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks, although
wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of any
kind or character there was not a semblance to be discovered upon
any portion of his head. This odd little gentleman was dressed in a
loose surtout of sky-blue satin, with tight breeches to match,
fastened with silver buckles at the knees. His vest was of some bright
yellow material; a white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of
his head; and, to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk
handkerchief enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty
manner, upon his bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent
dimensions.

Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from
the surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly seized
with a fit of trepidation, and appeared disinclined to make any nearer
approach to terra firma. Throwing out, therefore, a quantity of sand
from a canvas bag, which, he lifted with great difficulty, he became
stationary in an instant. He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated
manner, to extract from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco
pocket-book. This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it
with an air of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its
weight. He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter
sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let it
fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von
Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut,
still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther business
to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make busy
preparations for departure; and it being necessary to discharge a
portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the half dozen bags
which he threw out, one after another, without taking the trouble to
empty their contents, tumbled, every one of them, most unfortunately
upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him over and over no less
than one-and-twenty times, in the face of every man in Rotterdam. It
is not to be supposed, however, that the great Underduk suffered
this impertinence on the part of the little old man to pass off with
impunity. It is said, on the contrary, that during each and every
one of his one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than
one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to which
he held fast the whole time with all his might, and to which he
intends holding fast until the day of his death.

In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far away
above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to
that from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus lost forever
to the wondering eyes of the good citiezns of Rotterdam. All attention
was now directed to the letter, the descent of which, and the
consequences attending thereupon, had proved so fatally subversive
of both person and personal dignity to his Excellency, the illustrious
Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk. That functionary,
however, had not failed, during his circumgyratory movements, to
bestow a thought upon the important subject of securing the packet in
question, which was seen, upon inspection, to have fAllan into the
most proper hands, being actually addressed to himself and Professor
Rub-a-dub, in their official capacities of President and
Vice-President of the Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was
accordingly opened by those dignitaries upon the spot, and found to
contain the following extraordinary, and indeed very serious,
communications.

To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and
Vice-President of the States' College of Astronomers, in the city of
Rotterdam.

Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble artizan,
by name Hans Phaall, and by occupation a mender of bellows, who,
with three others, disappeared from Rotterdam, about five years ago,
in a manner which must have been considered by all parties at once
sudden, and extremely unaccountable. If, however, it so please your
Excellencies, I, the writer of this communication, am the identical
Hans Phaall himself. It is well known to most of my fellow citizens,
that for the period of forty years I continued to occupy the little
square brick building, at the head of the alley called Sauerkraut,
in which I resided at the time of my disappearance. My ancestors
have also resided therein time out of mindthey, as well as myself,
steadily following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession
of mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years,
that the heads of all the people have been set agog with politics,
no better business than my own could an honest citizen of Rotterdam
either desire or deserve. Credit was good, employment was never
wanting, and on all hands there was no lack of either money or
good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon began to feel the effects
of liberty and long speeches, and radicalism, and all that sort of
thing. People who were formerly, the very best customers in the world,
had now not a moment of time to think of us at all. They had, so
they said, as much as they could do to read about the revolutions, and
keep up with the march of intellect and the spirit of the age. If a
fire wanted fanning, it could readily be fanned with a newspaper,
and as the government grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and
iron acquired durability in proportion, for, in a very short time,
there was not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in
need of a stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a
state of things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat,
and, having a wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length
became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the
most convenient method of putting an end to my life. Duns, in the
meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation. My house was
literally besieged from morning till night, so that I began to rave,
and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against the bars of his
enclosure. There were three fellows in particular who worried me
beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my door, and
threatening me with the law. Upon these three I internally vowed the
bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so happy as to get them
within my clutches; and I believe nothing in the world but the
pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from putting my plan of
suicide into immediate execution, by blowing my brains out with a
blunderbuss. I thought it best, however, to dissemble my wrath, and to
treat them with promises and fair words, until, by some good turn of
fate, an opportunity of vengeance should be afforded me.

One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more than
usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander about the most
obscure streets without object whatever, until at length I chanced
to stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall. Seeing a
chair close at hand, for the use of customers, I threw myself doggedly
into it, and, hardly knowing why, opened the pages of the first volume
which came within my reach. It proved to be a small pamphlet
treatise on Speculative Astronomy, written either by Professor Encke
of Berlin or by a Frenchman of somewhat similar name. I had some
little tincture of information on matters of this nature, and soon
became more and more absorbed in the contents of the book, reading
it actually through twice before I awoke to a recollection of what was
passing around me. By this time it began to grow dark, and I
directed my steps toward home. But the treatise had made an
indelible impression on my mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky
streets, I revolved carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes
unintelligible reasonings of the writer. There are some particular
passages which affected my imagination in a powerful and extraordinary
manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more intense grew the
interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature of my
education in general, and more especially my ignorance on subjects
connected with natural philosophy, so far from rendering me
diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or inducing
me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in consequence,
merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination; and I was vain
enough, or perhaps reasonable enough, to doubt whether those crude
ideas which, arising in ill-regulated minds, have all the
appearance, may not often in effect possess all the force, the
reality, and other inherent properties, of instinct or intuition;
whether, to proceed a step farther, profundity itself might not, in
matters of a purely speculative nature, be detected as a legitimate
source of falsity and error. In other words, I believed, and still
do believe, that truth, is frequently of its own essence, superficial,
and that, in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses where we
seek her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas. In
the contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly that
I could not distinguish a star with nearly as much precision, when I
gazed on it with earnest, direct and undeviating attention, as when
I suffered my eye only to glance in its vicinity alone. I was not,
of course, at that time aware that this apparent paradox was
occasioned by the center of the visual area being less susceptible
of feeble impressions of light than the exterior portions of the
retina. This knowledge, and some of another kind, came afterwards in
the course of an eventful five years, during which I have dropped
the prejudices of my former humble situation in life, and forgotten
the bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at the epoch of
which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of a star
offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with the
force of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my mind
to the course which I afterwards pursued.

It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed. My
mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the whole
night buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning, and
contriving again to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I repaired
eagerly to the bookseller's stall, and laid out what little ready
money I possessed, in the purchase of some volumes of Mechanics and
Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at home safely with these, I
devoted every spare moment to their perusal, and soon made such
proficiency in studies of this nature as I thought sufficient for
the execution of my plan. In the intervals of this period, I made
every endeavor to conciliate the three creditors who had given me so
much annoyance. In this I finally succeededpartly by selling enough
of my household furniture to satisfy a moiety of their claim, and
partly by a promise of paying the balance upon completion of a
little project which I told them I had in view, and for assistance
in which I solicited their services. By these meansfor they were
ignorant menI found little difficulty in gaining them over to my
purpose.

Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife
and with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what property
I had remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under various
pretences, and without paying any attention to my future means of
repayment, no inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means
thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin,
very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish
of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order;
and several other articles necessary in the construction and equipment
of a balloon of extraordinary dimensions. This I directed my wife to
make up as soon as possible, and gave her all requisite information as
to the particular method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up
the twine into a net-work of sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a
hoop and the necessary cords; bought a quadrant, a compass, a
spy-glass, a common barometer with some important modifications, and
two astronomical instruments not so generally known. I then took
opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation east of
Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty gallons each,
and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes, three inches in
diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in length; a quantity of a
particular metallic substance, or semi-metal, which I shall not
name, and a dozen demijohns of a very common acid. The gas to be
formed from these latter materials is a gas never yet generated by any
other person than myselfor at least never applied to any similar
purpose. The secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that
it of right belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was
conditionally communicated to myself. The same individual submitted to
me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a method of
constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain animal, through
which substance any escape of gas was nearly an impossibility. I found
it, however, altogether too expensive, and was not sure, upon the
whole, whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum caoutchouc, was
not equally as good. I mention this circumstance, because I think it
probable that hereafter the individual in question may attempt a
balloon ascension with the novel gas and material I have spoken of,
and I do not wish to deprive him of the honor of a very singular
invention.

On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug a
hole two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle
twenty-five feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being
the station designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three
feet in depth. In each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a
canister containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg
holding one hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder. Thesethe
keg and canistersI connected in a proper manner with covered
trains; and having let into one of the canisters the end of about four
feet of slow match, I covered up the hole, and placed the cask over
it, leaving the other end of the match protruding about an inch, and
barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the remaining
holes, and placed the barrels over them in their destined situation.

Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot,
and there secreted, one of M. Grimm's improvements upon the
apparatus for condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this
machine, however, to require considerable alteration before it could
be adapted to the purposes to which I intended making it applicable.
But, with severe labor and unremitting perseverance, I at length met
with entire success in all my preparations. My balloon was soon
completed. It would contain more than forty thousand cubic feet of
gas; would take me up easily, I calculated, with all my implements,
and, if I managed rightly, with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of
ballast into the bargain. It had received three coats of varnish,
and I found the cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk
itself, quite as strong and a good deal less expensive.

Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of
secrecy in relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit
to the bookseller's stall; and promising, on my part, to return as
soon as circumstances would permit, I gave her what little money I had
left, and bade her farewell. Indeed I had no fear on her account.
She was what people call a notable woman, and could manage matters
in the world without my assistance. I believe, to tell the truth,
she always looked upon me as an idle boy, a mere make-weight, good for
nothing but building castles in the air, and was rather glad to get
rid of me. It was a dark night when I bade her good-bye, and taking
with me, as aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so
much trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and
accoutrements, by a roundabout way, to the station where the other
articles were deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I
proceeded immediately to business.

It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was dark;
there was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at
intervals, rendered us very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was
concerning the balloon, which, in spite of the varnish with which it
was defended, began to grow rather heavy with the moisture; the powder
also was liable to damage. I therefore kept my three duns working with
great diligence, pounding down ice around the central cask, and
stirring the acid in the others. They did not cease, however,
importuning me with questions as to what I intended to do with all
this apparatus, and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible
labor I made them undergo. They could not perceive, so they said, what
good was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin, merely
to take a part in such horrible incantations. I began to get uneasy,
and worked away with all my might, for I verily believe the idiots
supposed that I had entered into a compact with the devil, and that,
in short, what I was now doing was nothing better than it should be. I
was, therefore, in great fear of their leaving me altogether. I
contrived, however, to pacify them by promises of payment of all
scores in full, as soon as I could bring the present business to a
termination. To these speeches they gave, of course, their own
interpretation; fancying, no doubt, that at all events I should come
into possession of vast quantities of ready money; and provided I paid
them all I owed, and a trifle more, in consideration of their
services, I dare say they cared very little what became of either my
soul or my carcass.

In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
inflated. I attached the car, therefore, and put all my implements
in itnot forgetting the condensing apparatus, a copious supply of
water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as pemmican, in
which much nutriment is contained in comparatively little bulk. I also
secured in the car a pair of pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly
daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my departure. Dropping
a lighted cigar on the ground, as if by accident, I took the
opportunity, in stooping to pick it up, of igniting privately the
piece of slow match, whose end, as I said before, protruded a very
little beyond the lower rim of one of the smaller casks. This
manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of the three duns;
and, jumping into the car, I immediately cut the single cord which
held me to the earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward,
carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden
ballast, and able to have carried up as many more.

Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when,
roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous
manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke, and sulphur, and
legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and blazing metal, that
my very heart sunk within me, and I fell down in the bottom of the
car, trembling with unmitigated terror. Indeed, I now perceived that I
had entirely overdone the business, and that the main consequences
of the shock were yet to be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a
second, I felt all the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and
immediately thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst
abruptly through the night and seemed to rip the very firmament
asunder. When I afterward had time for reflection, I did not fail to
attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded myself,
to its proper causemy situation directly above it, and in the line
of its greatest power. But at the time, I thought only of preserving
my life. The balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded,
then whirled round and round with horrible velocity, and finally,
reeling and staggering like a drunken man, hurled me with great force
over the rim of the car, and left me dangling, at a terrific height,
with my head downward, and my face outwards, by a piece of slender
cord about three feet in length, which hung accidentally through a
crevice near the bottom of the wicker-work, and in which, as I fell,
my left foot became most providentially entangled. It is
impossibleutterly impossibleto form any adequate idea of the
horror of my situation. I gasped convulsively for breatha shudder
resembling a fit of the ague agitated every nerve and muscle of my
frameI felt my eyes starting from their socketsa horrible nausea
overwhelmed meand at length I fainted away.

How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It
must, however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I
partially recovered the sense of existence, I found the day
breaking, the balloon at a prodigious height over a wilderness of
ocean, and not a trace of land to be discovered far and wide within
the limits of the vast horizon. My sensations, however, upon thus
recovering, were by no means so rife with agony as might have been
anticipated. Indeed, there was much of incipient madness in the calm
survey which I began to take of my situation. I drew up to my eyes
each of my hands, one after the other, and wondered what occurrence
could have given rise to the swelling of the veins, and the horrible
blackness of the fingemails. I afterward carefully examined my head,
shaking it repeatedly, and feeling it with minute attention, until I
succeeded in satisfying myself that it was not, as I had more than
half suspected, larger than my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I
felt in both my breeches pockets, and, missing therefrom a set of
tablets and a toothpick case, endeavored to account for their
disappearance, and not being able to do so, felt inexpressibly
chagrined. It now occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in
the joint of my left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation
began to glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither
astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it was a
kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to
display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a
moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of
doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest
meditation. I have a distinct recollection of frequently compressing
my lips, putting my forefinger to the side of my nose, and making
use of other gesticulations and grimaces common to men who, at ease in
their arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of intricacy or importance.
Having, as I thought, sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with
great caution and deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and
unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat
rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them,
however, after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the
buckle, and was glad to find them remain firm in that position.
Holding the instrument thus obtained within my teeth, I now
proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to rest several
times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it was at length
accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made fast the buckle,
and the other end I tied, for greater security, tightly around my
wrist. Drawing now my body upwards, with a prodigious exertion of
muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in throwing
the buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had anticipated, in
the circular rim of the wicker-work.

My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an angle of
about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was
therefore only forty-five degrees below the perpendicular. So far from
it, I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon; for the
change of situation which I had acquired, had forced the bottom of the
car considerably outwards from my position, which was accordingly
one of the most imminent and deadly peril. It should be remembered,
however, that when I fell in the first instance, from the car, if I
had fAllan with my face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned
outwardly from it, as it actually was; or if, in the second place, the
cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge,
instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car,I say it
may be readily conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I
should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now
accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans Phaall would have
been utterly lost to posterity, I had therefore every reason to be
grateful; although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be
anything at all, and hung for, perhaps, a quarter of an hour in that
extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion
whatsoever, and in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.
But this feeling did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
succeeded horror, and dismay, and a chilling sense of utter
helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so long accumulating in
the vessels of my head and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my
spirits with madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within
their proper channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my
perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me of the
self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness was,
luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came to my
rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and struggles, I
jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length, clutching with a
vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it,
and fell headlong and shuddering within the car.

It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then,
however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my great relief,
uninjured. My implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost
neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I had so well secured them
in their places, that such an accident was entirely out of the
question. Looking at my watch, I found it six o'clock. I was still
rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave a present altitude of three
and three-quarter miles. Immediately beneath me in the ocean, lay a
small black object, slightly oblong in shape, seemingly about the
size, and in every way bearing a great resemblance to one of those
childish toys called a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon
it, I plainly discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship,
close-hauled, and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the
W.S.W. Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and
the sun, which had long arisen.

It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the
object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind that
distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length driven me to the
resolution of committing suicide. It was not, however, that to life
itself I had any, positive disgust, but that I was harassed beyond
endurance by the adventitious miseries attending my situation. In this
state of mind, wishing to live, yet wearied with life, the treatise at
the stall of the bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I
then finally made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet liveto
leave the world, yet continue to existin short, to drop enigmas, I
resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could, to the
moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than I
actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the considerations
which led me to believe that an achievement of this nature, although
without doubt difficult, and incontestably full of danger, was not
absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond the confines of the possible.

The moon's actual distance from the earth was the first thing to
be attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the
centres of the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth's equatorial radii,
or only about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average interval. But
it must be borne in mind that the form of the moon's orbit being an
ellipse of eccentricity amounting to no less than 0.05484 of the major
semi-axis of the ellipse itself, and the earth's centre being situated
in its focus, if I could, in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as
it were, in its perigee, the above mentioned distance would be
materially diminished. But, to say nothing at present of this
possibility, it was very certain that, at all events, from the 237,000
miles I would have to deduct the radius of the earth, say 4,000, and
the radius of the moon, say 1080, in all 5,080, leaving an actual
interval to be traversed, under average circumstances, of 231,920
miles. Now this, I reflected, was no very extraordinary distance.
Travelling on land has been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of
thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much greater speed may be
anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would take me no more
than 322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There were, however,
many particulars inducing me to believe that my average rate of
travelling might possibly very much exceed that of thirty miles per
hour, and, as these considerations did not fail to make a deep
impression upon my mind, I will mention them more fully hereafter.

The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater
importance. From indications afforded by the barometer, we find
that, in ascensions from the surface of the earth we have, at the
height of 1,000 feet, left below us about one-thirtieth of the
entire mass of atmospheric air, that at 10,600 we have ascended
through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not far from
the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the material,
or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body of air incumbent upon
our globe. It is also calculated that at an altitude not exceeding the
hundredth part of the earth's diameterthat is, not exceeding eighty
milesthe rarefaction would be so excessive that animal life could
in no manner be sustained, and, moreover, that the most delicate means
we possess of ascertaining the presence of the atmosphere would be
inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I did not fail to
perceive that these latter calculations are founded altogether on
our experimental knowledge of the properties of air, and the
mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in what may
be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of the earth
itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted that animal
life is and must be essentially incapable of modification at any given
unattainable distance from the surface. Now, all such reasoning and
from such data must, of course, be simply analogical. The greatest
height ever reached by man was that of 25,000 feet, attained in the
aeronautic expedition of Messieurs Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a
moderate altitude, even when compared with the eighty miles in
question; and I could not help thinking that the subject admitted room
for doubt and great latitude for speculation.

But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given
altitude, the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any farther
ascension is by no means in proportion to the additional height
ascended (as may be plainly seen from what has been stated before),
but in a ratio constantly decreasing. It is therefore evident that,
ascend as high as we may, we cannot, literally speaking, arrive at a
limit beyond which no atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I
argued; although it may exist in a state of infinite rarefaction.

On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been
wanting to prove the existence of a real and definite limit to the
atmosphere, beyond which there is absolutely no air whatsoever. But
a circumstance which has been left out of view by those who contend
for such a limit seemed to me, although no positive refutation of
their creed, still a point worthy very serious investigation. On
comparing the intervals between the successive arrivals of Encke's
comet at its perihelion, after giving credit, in the most exact
manner, for all the disturbances due to the attractions of the
planets, it appears that the periods are gradually diminishing; that
is to say, the major axis of the comet's ellipse is growing shorter,
in a slow but perfectly regular decrease. Now, this is precisely
what ought to be the case, if we suppose a resistance experienced from
the comet from an extremely rare ethereal medium pervading the regions
of its orbit. For it is evident that such a medium must, in
retarding the comet's velocity, increase its centripetal, by weakening
its centrifugal force. In other words, the sun's attraction would be
constantly attaining greater power, and the comet would be drawn
nearer at every revolution. Indeed, there is no other way of
accounting for the variation in question. But again. The real diameter
of the same comet's nebulosity is observed to contract rapidly as it
approaches the sun, and dilate with equal rapidity in its departure
towards its aphelion. Was I not justifiable in supposing with M. Valz,
that this apparent condensation of volume has its origin in the
compression of the same ethereal medium I have spoken of before, and
which is only denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The
lenticular-shaped phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light, was a
matter worthy of attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics,
and which cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from the
horizon obliquely upward, and follows generally the direction of the
sun's equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature of a rare
atmosphere extending from the sun outward, beyond the orbit of Venus
at least, and I believed indefinitely farther.* Indeed, this medium
I could not suppose confined to the path of the comet's ellipse, or to
the immediate neighborhood of the sun. It was easy, on the contrary,
to imagine it pervading the entire regions of our planetary system,
condensed into what we call atmosphere at the planets themselves,
and perhaps at some of them modified by considerations, so to speak,
purely geological.

Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further
hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with
atmosphere essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I
conceived that, by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M.
Grimm, I should readily be enabled to condense it in sufficient
quantity for the purposes of respiration. This would remove the
chief obstacle in a journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some money
and great labor in adapting the apparatus to the object intended,
and confidently looked forward to its successful application, if I
could manage to complete the voyage within any reasonable period. This
brings me back to the rate at which it might be possible to travel.

It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions
from the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively
moderate. Now, the power of elevation lies altogether in the
superior lightness of the gas in the balloon compared with the
atmospheric air; and, at first sight, it does not appear probable
that, as the balloon acquires altitude, and consequently arrives
successively in atmospheric strata of densities rapidly
diminishingI say, it does not appear at all reasonable that, in
this its progress upwards, the original velocity should be
accelerated. On the other hand, I was not aware that, in any
recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the absolute rate
of ascent; although such should have been the case, if on account of
nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through balloons
ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material than the
ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect of such escape
was only sufficient to counterbalance the effect of some
accelerating power. I now considered that, provided in my passage I
found the medium I had imagined, and provided that it should prove
to be actually and essentially what we denominate atmospheric air,
it could make comparatively little difference at what extreme state of
rarefaction I should discover itthat is to say, in regard to my
power of ascendingfor the gas in the balloon would not only be
itself subject to rarefaction partially similar (in proportion to the
occurrence of which, I could suffer an escape of so much as would be
requisite to prevent explosion), but, being what it was, would, at all
events, continue specifically lighter than any compound whatever of
mere nitrogen and oxygen. In the meantime, the force of gravitation
would be constantly diminishing, in proportion to the squares of the
distances, and thus, with a velocity prodigiously accelerating, I
should at length arrive in those distant regions where the force of
the earth's attraction would be superseded by that of the moon. In
accordance with these ideas, I did not think it worth while to
encumber myself with more provisions than would be sufficient for a
period of forty days.

There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned me
some little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in balloon
ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain attending
respiration, great uneasiness is experienced about the head and
body, often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and other
symptoms of an alarming kind, and growing more and more inconvenient
in proportion to the altitude attained.* This was a reflection of a
nature somewhat startling. Was it not probable that these symptoms
would increase indefinitely, or at least until terminated by death
itself? I finally thought not. Their origin was to be looked for in
the progressive removal of the customary atmospheric pressure upon the
surface of the body, and consequent distention of the superficial
blood-vesselsnot in any positive disorganization of the animal
system, as in the case of difficulty in breathing, where the
atmospheric density is chemically insufficient for the due
renovation of blood in a ventricle of the heart. Unless for default of
this renovation, I could see no reason, therefore, why life could
not be sustained even in a vacuum; for the expansion and compression
of chest, commonly called breathing, is action purely muscular, and
the cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I conceived
that, as the body should become habituated to the want of
atmospheric pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually
diminishand to endure them while they continued, I relied with
confidence upon the iron hardihood of my constitution.

*Since the original publication of Hans Phaall, I find that Mr.
Green, of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts, deny the
assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a decreasing
inconvenience,precisely in accordance with the theory here urged in
a mere spirit of banter.

Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some,
though by no means all, the considerations which led me to form the
project of a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before you the
result of an attempt so apparently audacious in conception, and, at
all events, so utterly unparalleled in the annals of mankind.

Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say
three miles and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a quantity of
feathers, and found that I still ascended with sufficient rapidity;
there was, therefore, no necessity for discharging any ballast. I
was glad of this, for I wished to retain with me as much weight as I
could carry, for reasons which will be explained in the sequel. I as
yet suffered no bodily inconvenience, breathing with great freedom,
and feeling no pain whatever in the head. The cat was lying very
demurely upon my coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons
with an air of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to
prevent their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains
of rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.

At twenty minutes past six o'clock, the barometer showed an
elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The prospect
seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated by means of
spherical geometry, what a great extent of the earth's area I
beheld. The convex surface of any segment of a sphere is, to the
entire surface of the sphere itself, as the versed sine of the segment
to the diameter of the sphere. Now, in my case, the versed sinethat
is to say, the thickness of the segment beneath mewas about equal
to my elevation, or the elevation of the point of sight above the
surface. "As five miles, then, to eight thousand," would express the
proportion of the earth's area seen by me. In other words, I beheld as
much as a sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe.
The sea appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the
spy-glass, I could perceive it to be in a state of violent
agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having drifted away,
apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at intervals,
severe pain in the head, especially about the earsstill, however,
breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat and pigeons seemed to suffer
no inconvenience whatsoever.

At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long series of
dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging my
condensing apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to be sure,
a singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible that a cloud
of this nature could be sustained at so great an elevation. I
thought it best, however, to throw out two five-pound pieces of
ballast, reserving still a weight of one hundred and sixty-five
pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above the difficulty, and perceived
immediately, that I had obtained a great increase in my rate of
ascent. In a few seconds after my leaving the cloud, a flash of
vivid lightning shot from one end of it to the other, and caused it to
kindle up, throughout its vast extent, like a mass of ignited and
glowing charcoal. This, it must be remembered, was in the broad
light of day. No fancy may picture the sublimity which might have been
exhibited by a similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of
the night. Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even
as it was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and stalk
about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and red ghastly
chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had indeed made a
narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very short while longer
within the cloudthat is to sayhad not the inconvenience of getting
wet, determined me to discharge the ballast, inevitable ruin would
have been the consequence. Such perils, although little considered,
are perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in balloons. I
had by this time, however, attained too great an elevation to be any
longer uneasy on this head.

I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer
indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began
to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was
excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a moisture about
my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood, which was oozing
quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes, also, gave me great
uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them they seemed to have
protruded from their sockets in no inconsiderable degree; and all
objects in the car, and even the balloon itself, appeared distorted to
my vision. These symptoms were more than I had expected, and
occasioned me some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently, and
without consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound
pieces of ballast. The accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained,
carried me too rapidly, and without sufficient gradation, into a
highly rarefied stratum of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly
proved fatal to my expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized
with a spasm which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
this, in a measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
intervals, and in a gasping mannerbleeding all the while copiously
at the nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The pigeons
appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to escape; while
the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of her
mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of
poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had
been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my agitation was
excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death, and death in a few
minutes. The physical suffering I underwent contributed also to render
me nearly incapable of making any exertion for the preservation of my
life. I had, indeed, little power of reflection left, and the violence
of the pain in my head seemed to be greatly on the increase. Thus I
found that my senses would shortly give way altogether, and I had
already clutched one of the valve ropes with the view of attempting a
descent, when the recollection of the trick I had played the three
creditors, and the possible consequences to myself, should I return,
operated to deter me for the moment. I lay down in the bottom of the
car, and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far
succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood. Having
no lancet, however, I was constrained to perform the operation in the
best manner I was able, and finally succeeded in opening a vein in my
right arm, with the blade of my penknife. The blood had hardly
commenced flowing when I experienced a sensible relief, and by the
time I had lost about half a moderate basin full, most of the worst
symptoms had abandoned me entirely. I nevertheless did not think it
expedient to attempt getting on my feet immediately; but, having tied
up my arm as well as I could, I lay still for about a quarter of an
hour. At the end of this time I arose, and found myself freer from
absolute pain of any kind than I had been during the last hour and a
quarter of my ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however, was
diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be
positively necessary to make use of my condenser. In the meantime,
looking toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed away upon my coat,
I discovered to my infinite surprise, that she had taken the
opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light a litter of three
little kittens. This was an addition to the number of passengers on my
part altogether unexpected; but I was pleased at the occurrence. It
would afford me a chance of bringing to a kind of test the truth of a
surmise, which, more than anything else, had influenced me in
attempting this ascension. I had imagined that the habitual endurance
of the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the cause,
or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a distance
above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer uneasiness in
an equal degree with their mother, I must consider my theory in fault,
but a failure to do so I should look upon as a strong confirmation
of my idea.

By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen
miles above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident
that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the
progression would have been apparent in a slight degree even had I not
discharged the ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears
returned, at intervals, with violence, and I still continued to
bleed occasionally at the nose; but, upon the whole, I suffered much
less than might have been expected. I breathed, however, at every
moment, with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was
attended with a troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now
unpacked the condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.

The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was beautiful
indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I
could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean,
which every moment gained a deeper and a deeper tint of blue and began
already to assume a slight appearance of convexity. At a vast distance
to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the
islands of Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and
Spain, with a small portion of the northern part of the continent of
Africa. Of individual edifices not a trace could be discovered, and
the proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the face of
the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a dim
speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as
the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward
as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed
at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I
found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty
cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were
brilliantly visible.

The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of them,
a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the rim of the
wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking anxiously around
him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud cooing noise, but could
not be persuaded to trust himself from off the car. I took him up at
last, and threw him to about half a dozen yards from the balloon. He
made, however, no attempt to descend as I had expected, but
struggled with great vehemence to get back, uttering at the same
time very shrill and piercing cries. He at length succeeded in
regaining his former station on the rim, but had hardly done so when
his head dropped upon his breast, and be fell dead within the car. The
other one did not prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following the
example of his companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him
downward with all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his
descent, with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and
in a perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of
sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who seemed
in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a hearty
meal of the dead bird and then went to sleep with much apparent
satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far evinced not
the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.

At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath without
the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around
the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser. This apparatus
will require some little explanation, and your Excellencies will
please to bear in mind that my object, in the first place, was to
surround myself and cat entirely with a barricade against the highly
rarefied atmosphere in which I was existing, with the intention of
introducing within this barricade, by means of my condenser, a
quantity of this same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the
purposes of respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a
very strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this
bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a
manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole
bottom of the car, up its sides, and so on, along the outside of the
ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work is attached. Having
pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a complete enclosure on
all sides, and at botttom, it was now necessary to fasten up its top
or mouth, by passing its material over the hoop of the net-workin
other words, between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work
were separated from the hoop to admit this passage, what was to
sustain the car in the meantime? Now the net-work was not
permanently fastened to the hoop, but attached by a series of
running loops or nooses. I therefore undid only a few of these loops
at one time, leaving the car suspended by the remainder. Having thus
inserted a portion of the cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I
refastened the loopsnot to the hoop, for that would have been
impossible, since the cloth now intervenedbut to a series of large
buttons, affixed to the cloth itself, about three feet below the mouth
of the bag, the intervals between the buttons having been made to
correspond to the intervals between the loops. This done, a few more
of the loops were unfastened from the rim, a farther portion of the
cloth introduced, and the disengaged loops then connected with their
proper buttons. In this way it was possible to insert the whole
upper part of the bag between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident
that the hoop would now drop down within the car, while the whole
weight of the car itself, with all its contents, would be held up
merely by the strength of the buttons. This, at first sight, would
seem an inadequate dependence; but it was by no means so, for the
buttons were not only very strong in themselves, but so close together
that a very slight portion of the whole weight was supported by any
one of them. Indeed, had the car and contents been three times heavier
than they were, I should not have been at all uneasy. I now raised
up the hoop again within the covering of gum-elastic, and propped it
at nearly its former height by means of three light poles prepared for
the occasion. This was done, of course, to keep the bag distended at
the top, and to preserve the lower part of the net-work in its
proper situation. All that now remained was to fasten up the mouth
of the enclosure; and this was readily accomplished by gathering the
folds of the material together, and twisting them up very tightly on
the inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.

In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had been
inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass, through
which I could see without difficulty around me in every horizontal
direction. In that portion of the cloth forming the bottom, was
likewise, a fourth window, of the same kind, and corresponding with
a small aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to
see perpendicularly down, but having found it impossible to place
any similar contrivance overhead, on account of the peculiar manner of
closing up the opening there, and the consequent wrinkles in the
cloth, I could expect to see no objects situated directly in my
zenith. This, of course, was a matter of little consequence; for had I
even been able to place a window at top, the balloon itself would have
prevented my making any use of it.

About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular opening,
eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim adapted in its
inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim was screwed the
large tube of the condenser, the body of the machine being, of course,
within the chamber of gum-elastic. Through this tube a quantity of the
rare atmosphere circumjacent being drawn by means of a vacuum
created in the body of the machine, was thence discharged, in a
state of condensation, to mingle with the thin air already in the
chamber. This operation being repeated several times, at length filled
the chamber with atmosphere proper for all the purposes of
respiration. But in so confined a space it would, in a short time,
necessarily become foul, and unfit for use from frequent contact
with the lungs. It was then ejected by a small valve at the bottom
of the carthe dense air readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere
below. To avoid the inconvenience of making a total vacuum at any
moment within the chamber, this purification was never accomplished
all at once, but in a gradual mannerthe valve being opened only for
a few seconds, then closed again, until one or two strokes from the
pump of the condenser had supplied the place of the atmosphere
ejected. For the sake of experiment I had put the cat and kittens in
a small basket, and suspended it outside the car to a button at the
bottom, close by the valve, through which I could feed them at any
moment when necessary. I did this at some little risk, and before
closing the mouth of the chamber, by reaching under the car with one
of the poles before mentioned to which a hook had been attached.

By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled
the chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine
o'clock. During the whole period of my being thus employed, I
endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of respiration, and
bitterly did I repent the negligence or rather fool-hardiness, of
which I had been guilty, of putting off to the last moment a matter of
so much importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began
to reap the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with
perfect freedom and easeand indeed why should I not? I was also
agreeably surprised to find myself, in a great measure, relieved
from the violent pains which had hitherto tormented me. A slight
headache, accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distention
about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all of
which I had now to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater
part of the uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric pressure
had actually worn off, as I had expected, and that much of the pain
endured for the last two hours should have been attributed
altogether to the effects of a deficient respiration.

At twenty minutes before nine o'clockthat is to say, a short time
prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury
attained its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I
mentioned before, was one of an extended construction. It then
indicated an altitude on my part of 132,000 feet, or five-and-twenty
miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an extent of the
earth's area amounting to no less than the three hundred-and-twentieth
part of its entire superficies. At nine o'clock I had again lost sight
of land to the eastward, but not before I became aware that the
balloon was drifting rapidly to the N. N. W. The convexity of the
ocean beneath me was very evident indeed, although my view was often
interrupted by the masses of cloud which floated to and fro. I
observed now that even the lightest vapors never rose to more than ten
miles above the level of the sea.

At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful
of feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected;
but dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en masse, and with
the greatest velocitybeing out of sight in a very few seconds. I
did not at first know what to make of this extraordinary phenomenon;
not being able to believe that my rate of ascent had, of a sudden, met
with so prodigious an acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that
the atmosphere was now far too rare to sustain even the feathers; that
they actually fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity; and
that I had been surprised by the united velocities of their descent
and my own elevation.

By ten o'clock I found that I had very little to occupy my immediate
attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the balloon to be
going upward witb a speed increasing momently although I had no longer
any means of ascertaining the progression of the increase. I
suffered no pain or uneasiness of any kind, and enjoyed better spirits
than I had at any period since my departure from Rotterdam, busying
myself now in examining the state of my various apparatus, and now
in regenerating the atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point I
determined to attend to at regular intervals of forty minutes, more on
account of the preservation of my health, than from so frequent a
renovation being absolutely necessary. In the meanwhile I could not
help making anticipations. Fancy revelled in the wild and dreamy
regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling herself for once unshackled,
roamed at will among the ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and
unstable land. Now there were boary and time-honored forests, and
craggy precipices, and waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into
abysses without a bottom. Then I came suddenly into still noonday
solitudes, where no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast
meadows of poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread
themselves out a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever.
Then again I journeyed far down away into another country where it was
all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of clouds. And out of
this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees, like a
wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the shadows of the trees
which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface where they
fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and commingled with the
waves, while from the trunks of the trees other shadows were
continually coming out, and taking the place of their brothers thus
entombed. "This then," I said thoughtfully, "is the very reason why
the waters of this lake grow blacker with age, and more melancholy
as the hours run on." But fancies such as these were not the sole
possessors of my brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most
appalling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and
shake the innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of
their possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length
of time to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the
real and palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my undivided
attention.

At five o'clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the
atmosphere within the chamber, I took that opportunity of observing
the cat and kittens through the valve. The cat herself appeared to
suffer again very much, and I had no hesitation in attributing her
uneasiness chiefly to a difficulty in breathing; but my experiment
with the kittens had resulted very strangely. I had expected, of
course, to see them betray a sense of pain, although in a less
degree than their mother, and this would have been sufficient to
confirm my opinion concerning the habitual endurance of atmospheric
pressure. But I was not prepared to find them, upon close examination,
evidently enjoying a high degree of health, breathing with the
greatest ease and perfect regularity, and evincing not the slightest
sign of any uneasiness whatever. I could only account for all this
by extending my theory, and supposing that the highly rarefied
atmosphere around might perhaps not be, as I had taken for granted,
chemically insufficient for the purposes of life, and that a person
born in such a medium might, possibly, be unaware of any inconvenience
attending its inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser strata
near the earth, he might endure tortures of a similar nature to
those I had so lately experienced. It has since been to me a matter of
deep regret that an awkward accident, at this time, occasioned me
the loss of my little family of cats, and deprived me of the insight
into this matter which a continued experiment might have afforded.
In passing my hand through the valve, with a cup of water for the
old puss, the sleeves of my shirt became entangled in the loop which
sustained the basket, and thus, in a moment, loosened it from the
bottom. Had the whole actually vanished into air, it could not have
shot from my sight in a more abrupt and instantaneous manner.
Positively, there could not have intervened the tenth part of a second
between the disengagement of the basket and its absolute and total
disappearance with all that it contained. My good wishes followed it
to the earth, but of course, I had no hope that either cat or
kittens would ever live to tell the tale of their misfortune.

At six o'clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth's visible
area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to
advance with great rapidity, until, at five minutes before seven,
the whole surface in view was enveloped in the darkness of night. It
was not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the
setting sun ceased to illumine the balloon; and this circumstance,
although of course fully anticipated, did not fail to give me an
infinite deal of pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I
should behold the rising luminary many hours at least before the
citizens of Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther
to the eastward, and thus, day after day, in proportion to the
height ascended, would I enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and a
longer period. I now determined to keep a journal of my passage,
reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours continuously, without
taking into consideration the intervals of darkness.

At ten o'clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the
rest of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which,
obvious as it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very
moment of which I am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I proposed,
how could the atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated in the interim?
To breathe it for more than an hour, at the farthest, would be a
matter of impossibility, or, if even this term could be extended to an
hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might ensue. The
consideration of this dilemma gave me no little disquietude; and it
will hardly be believed, that, after the dangers I had undergone, I
should look upon this business in so serious a light, as to give up
all hope of accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my
mind to the necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only
momentary. I reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom, and
that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed
essentially important, which are only so at all by his having rendered
them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do without
sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no inconvenience from
being awakened at intervals of an hour during the whole period of my
repose. It would require but five minutes at most to regenerate the
atmosphere in the fullest manner, and the only real difficulty was
to contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper moment for so
doing. But this was a question which, I am willing to confess,
occasioned me no little trouble in its solution. To be sure, I had
heard of the student who, to prevent his falling asleep over his
books, held in one hand a ball of copper, the din of whose descent
into a basin of the same metal on the floor beside his chair, served
effectually to startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be
overcome with drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different
indeed, and left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish
to keep awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals
of time. I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple
as it may seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as an
invention fully equal to that of the telescope, the steam-engine, or
the art of printing itself.

It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now
attained, continued its course upward with an even and undeviating
ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect
that it would have been impossible to detect in it the slightest
vacillation whatever. This circumstance favored me greatly in the
project I now determined to adopt. My supply of water had been put
on board in kegs containing five gallons each, and ranged very
securely around the interior of the car. I unfastened one of these,
and taking two ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the
wicker-work from one side to the other; placing them about a foot
apart and parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I
placed the keg, and steadied it in a horizontal position. About
eight inches immediately below these ropes, and four feet from the
bottom of the car I fastened another shelfbut made of thin plank,
being the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf,
and exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small earthern
pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg over
the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a tapering or
conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out, as might happen,
until, after a few experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of
tightness, at which the water, oozing from the hole, and falling
into the pitcher below, would fill the latter to the brim in the
period of sixty minutes. This, of course, was a matter briefly and
easily ascertained, by noticing the proportion of the pitcher filled
in any given time. Having arranged all this, the rest of the plan is
obvious. My bed was so contrived upon the floor of the car, as to
bring my head, in lying down, immediately below the mouth of the
pitcher. It was evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the
pitcher, getting full, would be forced to run over, and to run over at
the mouth, which was somewhat lower than the rim. It was also evident,
that the water thus falling from a height of more than four feet,
could not do otherwise than fall upon my face, and that the sure
consequences would be, to waken me up instantaneously, even from the
soundest slumber in the world.

It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these
arrangements, and I immediately betook myself to bed, with full
confidence in the efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter was I
disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused by my
trusty chronometer, when, having emptied the pitcher into the
bung-hole of the keg, and performed the duties of the condenser, I
retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to my slumber caused
me even less discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I finally
arose for the day, it was seven o'clock, and the sun had attained many
degrees above the line of my horizon.

April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the
earth's apparent convexity increased in a material degree. Below me in
the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were
islands. Far away to the northward I perceived a thin, white, and
exceedingly brilliant line, or streak, on the edge of the horizon, and
I had no hesitation in supposing it to be the southern disk of the
ices of the Polar Sea. My curiosity was greatly excited, for I had
hopes of passing on much farther to the north, and might possibly,
at some period, find myself placed directly above the Pole itself. I
now lamented that my great elevation would, in this case, prevent my
taking as accurate a survey as I could wish. Much, however, might be
ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary nature occurred during
the day. My apparatus all continued in good order, and the balloon
still ascended without any perceptible vacillation. The cold was
intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When
darkness came over the earth, I betook myself to bed, although it
was for many hours afterward broad daylight all around my immediate
situation. The water-clock was punctual in its duty, and I slept until
next morning soundly, with the exception of the periodical
interruption.

April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at
the singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the
sea. It had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had
hitherto worn, being now of a grayish-white, and of a lustre
dazzling to the eye. The islands were no longer visible; whether
they had passed down the horizon to the southeast, or whether my
increasing elevation had left them out of sight, it is impossible to
say. I was inclined, however, to the latter opinion. The rim of ice to
the northward was growing more and more apparent. Cold by no means
so intense. Nothing of importance occurred, and I passed the day in
reading, having taken care to supply myself with books.

April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising while
nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved
in darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I
again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now very
distinct, and appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of the
ocean. I was evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity.
Fancied I could again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and
one also to the westward, but could not be certain. Weather
moderate. Nothing of any consequence happened during the day. Went
early to bed.

April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very
moderate distance, and an immense field of the same material
stretching away off to the horizon in the north. It was evident that
if the balloon held its present course, it would soon arrive above the
Frozen Ocean, and I had now little doubt of ultimately seeing the
Pole. During the whole of the day I continued to near the ice.
Toward night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and materially
increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth's form being that of an
oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened regions in the
vicinity of the Arctic circle. When darkness at length overtook me,
I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over the object of
so much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of observing it.

April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld
what there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole
itself. It was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet;
but, alas! I had now ascended to so vast a distance, that nothing
could with accuracy be discerned. Indeed, to judge from the
progression of the numbers indicating my various altitudes,
respectively, at different periods, between six A.M. on the second
of April, and twenty minutes before nine A.M. of the same day (at
which time the barometer ran down), it might be fairly inferred that
the balloon had now, at four o'clock in the morning of April the
seventh, reached a height of not less, certainly, than 7,254 miles
above the surface of the sea. This elevation may appear immense, but
the estimate upon which it is calculated gave a result in all
probability far inferior to the truth. At all events I undoubtedly
beheld the whole of the earth's major diameter; the entire northern
hemisphere lay beneath me like a chart orthographically projected: and
the great circle of the equator itself formed the boundary line of
my horizon. Your Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the
confined regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic
circle, although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen
without any appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in
themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a
distance from the point of sight, to admit of any very accurate
examination. Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature singular
and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before mentioned, and
which, with slight qualification, may be called the limit of human
discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or nearly unbroken, sheet of
ice continues to extend. In the first few degrees of this its
progress, its surface is very sensibly flattened, farther on depressed
into a plane, and finally, becoming not a little concave, it
terminates, at the Pole itself, in a circular centre, sharply defined,
wbose apparent diameter subtended at the balloon an angle of about
sixty-five seconds, and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was, at
all times, darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere, and
occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable
blackness. Farther than this, little could be ascertained. By twelve
o'clock the circular centre had materially decreased in circumference,
and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely; the balloon passing
over the western limb of the ice, and floating away rapidly in the
direction of the equator.

April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth's apparent
diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and
appearance. The whole visible area partook in different degrees of a
tint of pale yellow, and in some portions had acquired a brilliancy
even painful to the eye. My view downward was also considerably
impeded by the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of the surface being
loaded with clouds, between whose masses I could only now and then
obtain a glimpse of the earth itself. This difficulty of direct vision
had troubled me more or less for the last forty-eight hours; but my
present enormous elevation brought closer together, as it were, the
floating bodies of vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course,
more and more palpable in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless, I
could easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the range
of great lakes in the continent of North America, and was holding a
course, due south, which would bring me to the tropics. This
circumstance did not fail to give me the most heartful satisfaction,
and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate success. Indeed, the
direction I had hitherto taken, had filled me with uneasiness; for
it was evident that, had I continued it much longer, there would
have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all, whose
orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at only the small angle of 5 degrees
8' 48".

April 9th. To-day the earth's diameter was greatly diminished, and
the color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The
balloon kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived,
at nine P.M., over the northern edge of the Mexican Gulf.

April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five
o'clock this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound, for
which I could in no manner account. It was of very brief duration,
but, while it lasted resembled nothing in the world of which I had any
previous experience. It is needless to say that I became excessively
alarmed, having, in the first instance, attributed the noise to the
bursting of the balloon. I examined all my apparatus, however, with
great attention, and could discover nothing out of order. Spent a
great part of the day in meditating upon an occurrence so
extraordinary, but could find no means whatever of accounting for
it. Went to bed dissatisfied, and in a state of great anxiety and
agitation.

April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent diameter of
the earth, and a considerable increase, now observable for the first
time, in that of the moon itself, which wanted only a few days of
being full. It now required long and excessive labor to condense
within the chamber sufficient atmospheric air for the sustenance of
life.

April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the
direction of the balloon, and although fully anticipated, afforded
me the most unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its former course,
about the twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off
suddenly, at an acute angle, to the eastward, and thus proceeded
throughout the day, keeping nearly, if not altogether, in the exact
plane of the lunar elipse. What was worthy of remark, a very
perceptible vacillation in the car was a consequence of this change of
routea vacillation which prevailed, in a more or less degree, for a
period of many hours.

April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the loud,
crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought long upon the
subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory conclusion. Great
decrease in the earth's apparent diameter, which now subtended from
the balloon an angle of very little more than twenty-five degrees. The
moon could not be seen at all,